"'Looked it from the outside.' 

 "'Did you turn them off?' 

 "'I should say not. I hadn't the key. Besides I didn't turn them on. I didn't know who did, nor why. I just left them alone.' 

 "That meant a neat little electric bill of about six dollars, and Mr. Nesbitt talked to me in a very un-neutral way, and I got my hat and walked off home. He called me up after a while and tried to make peace, but I said I was ill from the nervous shock and couldn't work any more that day. So he sent me a box of candy to restore my shattered nerves, and the next day they were all right. 

 "One day I got rather belligerent myself. It was just a week after I came. One of his new tenants phoned in that Nesbitt must get the rubbish out of the alley back of his house or he would move out. Mr. Nesbitt tried to evade a promise, but the man was curt.  'You get that rubbish out to-day, or I get out to-morrow.' 

 "Mr. Nesbitt was just going to court, so he told me to call up a garbage man and get the rubbish removed. 

 "I didn't know the garbage men from the ministers, and they weren't classified in the directory. So I went to Mr. Orchard, a youngish sort of man, very pleasant, but slicker than Nesbitt himself. 

 "I said, not too amiably, 'Who are the garbage haulers in this town?' 

 "He said: 'Search me,' and went on writing. 

 "I dropped the directory on his desk, and said, "'Well, if Mr. Nesbitt loses a good tenant, I should worry.' 

 "Then he looked up and said: 'Oh, let's see. There's Jim Green, and Softy Meadows, and—and—Tully Scott—and—that's enough.' 

 "So I called them up. Jim Green was in jail for petty larceny. Softy Meadows was in bed with a broken leg. Tully Scott would do it for three fifty. So I gave him the number and told him to do it that afternoon without fail. 

 "Pretty soon Mr. Nesbitt came home.  'How about that rubbish?' 

 "'I got Tully Scott to do it for three fifty.' 

 "He fairly tore his hair.  'Three fifty! Tully Scott is the biggest highway robber in town, and everybody knows it! Why didn't you get the mayor and be done with it? Three fifty! Great Scott! Three fifty! 

 Prev. P 12/145 next